Back in Black: Buy Nothing Day protests post-Thanksgiving day shopping binge

For over 20 years, Buy Nothing Day has implored consumers to go cold turkey on Black Friday and not splurge until they purge…their wallets. Protests this year have an especially political edge, with Walmart and other major retailers facing strikes.

Somewhere along the way, the day after Thanksgiving became the
first day of the Christmas shopping season. For years, retailers
would open their doors at the crack of dawn on Friday, with the
alarm clock steadily rolling back until midnight as the aughts
[2000s] wore on.

At the time employees complained, arguing that in-store salary
workers were being robbed of their holiday to increase store
profits. Thanksgiving is just for the elite, millions serving in
the service economy commonly grumbled.

In response to the trend, the international day of protest
against consumerism – Buy Nothing Day – was organized to take
back a Christmas which “has been hijacked by commercial
forces.”

The movement, which has swelled to include 60 countries and
millions of people, is often defined by a lack of visible action,
although zombie walks and sit-ins have been disparately organized
to attract public attention. The day popularized by Ad Busters,
however, has mostly been a bust.

If anything, Americans are looking to buy more and more, and
workers continue to pay the price.

Black Friday now starts on Thursday

In 2012, Walmart and several other retailers continued the
wayward trend, announcing their stores would open at 8:00pm on
Thursday evening, prompting mostly ineffectual calls for walkouts
among workers.

For 2013 Walmart decided that they wouldn’t even shut up shop on
Thanksgiving, opting to open up their stores at 6am. Sears
Holding's Kmart, meanwhile, has been opening their stores at that
time for 22 years, promising a 41 hour shopping binge for this
year’s holiday season.

“Traditionally, most businesses have respected their workers
and closed their doors for the day, or at least allowed employees
to take a few hours off to enjoy an afternoon or evening meal
with family. Businesses which choose to stay open often allow
workers to choose if they want to work on the holiday. But Kmart
doesn't respect workers enough to even give them that
choice,” a letter posted on Credo Mobilize to Eddie Lampert,
CEO of Sears Holdings, reads.

The accompanying petition asking that employees
be allowed to stay home with their families garnered 53,310
signatures.

Arrests for civil disobedience in Secaucus, Colby Harris, two
other Walmart workers arrested for blocking the street.
#BlackFriday

Walmart, Best Buy, Macy’s and a slew of other retailers opted to
sweeten the pot by offering workers overtime pay in the midst of
the bad PR.

"Virtually all our shifts and slots for that opening are being
filled by volunteers," Jim Sluzewski, senior vice president
of corporate communications and external affairs, told NBC news
earlier this month. For those who didn’t volunteer, the
corporation had its 83,000 “seasonal workers” to fall back on.

‘Largest mobilization of working families in history’

But while many workers were sated with a bigger paycheck for
sacrificing their holidays again at the altar of capitalism, the
backlash is still brewing.

On Friday, civic disruption that doesn’t involve mobs fighting
over cheap Chinese electronics is slated for 1,500 cities coast
to coast, with Walmart employees and minimum wage workers-in-arms
vowing to bring what they call the human cost of capitalistic
excess front and center.

The not-for-profit organization and strike organizer United for
Respect at Walmart (OURWalmart) says the wave of protests is set
to be “one of the largest mobilizations of working families in
American history.”

“Workers are calling for an end to illegal retaliation, and
for Walmart to publicly commit to improving labor standards, such
as providing workers with more full time work and $25,000 a year.
As the country’s largest retailer and employer, Walmart makes
more than $17 billion in profits, with the wealth of the Walton
family totaling over $144.7 billion – equal to that of 42% of
Americans,” the group says in a statement on its site.

One of the more bitter ironies behind this year’s Thanksgiving
weekend is that many of those working through the holidays
themselves don’t have enough money to put down for Thanksgiving
dinner.

Recently, a Walmart in Canton, Ohio held a food drive for its
employees who could not afford a Thanksgiving meal, images of
which immediately went viral.

Last week, the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations
Board confirmed that Walmart has been using unlawful intimidation
and coercion to silence employees who publicly spoke out against
systemic poverty and poor working conditions at the country’s
largest corporation.

The agency charges that in 14 states Walmart store managers
“threatened, surveilled, disciplined and/or terminated
employees in anticipation of or in response to employees'
protected concerted activities,” The Hill Reports.
The unlawful behavior was documented as starting before last
year’s Black Friday protests and continuing through protests
around the company’s Annual General Meeting in June 2013.

“Black Friday 2013 will mark a turning point in American
history,” Dorian Warren, associate professor at Columbia
University, told OURWalmart. “Fifteen hundred protests against
Walmart is unprecedented. Working families are fighting back like
never before – and have the support of America behind them.”

As for the mobs fighting over TVs…

It wouldn’t be black Friday if aggressive crowds weren’t
screaming, punching, and at times shooting their way to get the
best deal on a flat screen TV before they are out of stock.

In the Chicago suburb of Romeoville, a suspected shoplifter was
shot after hopping behind the wheel and dragging a police officer
who attempted to stop him in the parking lot of a Kohl's
department store late on Thursday, the Chicago Tribune reported.

In Las Vegas, a customer who had purchased a big-screen
television at Target was shot in the leg while walking to a
nearby apartment complex, KLAS-TV reported. The victim was taken
to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries, police
said.

At a Walmart in the Southern California city of Rialto, a police
officer was injured after trying to break up a fight after a
store manager decided to open the doors early, sparking a melee,
the San Bernardino County Sun reported.
In northern New Jersey, police say they pepper sprayed and
arrested a man at an area Walmart following a Thanksgiving
shopping dispute on Thursday night.

Authorities say the suspect became “belligerent” while arguing
with a Walmart shopper over a television on Thursday night, and
then attacked a Garfield police officer when the manager called
for assistance.

And at a Walmart in Elkin, North Carolina, a screaming mob of 50
people got into an aggressive shoving match, with one man
throwing another to the ground, in order to get their hands on a
television. Several police officers stood by but didn’t lift a
finger to stop the fight.